Word.ws English Dictionary

screaming abdabs

screaming abdabs noun: a state of extreme nervousness.

Noun

screaming abdabs pl (plural only)

  1. (UK, plural, plural-only, slang) A state of extreme nervousness.
    • ...not noticing the sud smells anymore or belts over my head that gave me the screaming ab-dabs when I first came in the factory at fifteen...1959, Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, page 34
    • Meanwhile, down the road a piece, another British firm has had an attack of the abdabs.1971, New Scientist, page 80, by the EBSCO Publishing Firm

Examples of screaming abdabs in a sentence

  • Robert played all the time on his dummy keyboard and it drove Edna near mad, gave her the screaming abdabs as she put it.1986, Anthony Burgess, The Pianoplayers, page 201:
  • It's a nice night, and I’da darned sight rather take a walk out than see you work yourself into a fit of the screaming abdabs.2004, Mary Stewart, This Rough Magic:

Forms of screaming abdabs

alternative formscreaming habdabs

Questions about screaming abdabs

What does screaming abdabs mean?
Screaming abdabs means a state of extreme nervousness.
How do you use screaming abdabs in a sentence?
Robert played all the time on his dummy keyboard and it drove Edna near mad, gave her the screaming abdabs as she put it.
What part of speech is screaming abdabs?
Screaming abdabs is a noun.

Words near screaming abdabs in the dictionary

  1. screamier
  2. screamiest
  3. screamin'
  4. screaminess
  5. screaming
  6. screaming abdabs
  7. screaming bloody murder
  8. screaming blue murder
  9. screaming for
  10. screaming habdabs
  11. screaming hairy armadillo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: screaming abdabs (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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